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Seeing the World Through the Other's Eye: An Online Intervention Reducing Ethnic Prejudice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2017

GÁBOR SIMONOVITS ,
GÁBOR KÉZDI  and
PÉTER KARDOS
GÁBOR SIMONOVITS*
Affiliation:
New York University
GÁBOR KÉZDI*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
PÉTER KARDOS*
Affiliation:
Bloomfield College
*
Gábor Simonovits is a PhD candidate, Department of Politics, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA (simonovits@nyu.edu).
Gábor Kézdi is a Research Professor, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48104, USA (kezdi@umich.edu).
Péter Kardos is an Assistant Professor, Division of Social and Behavioral Science, Bloomfield College, Bloomfield, NJ 07003, USA (peter_kardos@bloomfield.edu).
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Abstract

We report the results of an intervention that targeted anti-Roma sentiment in Hungary using an online perspective-taking game. We evaluated the impact of this intervention using a randomized experiment in which a sample of young adults played this perspective-taking game, or an unrelated online game. Participation in the perspective-taking game markedly reduced prejudice, with an effect-size equivalent to half the difference between voters of the far-right and the center-right party. The effects persisted for at least a month, and, as a byproduct, the intervention also reduced antipathy toward refugees, another stigmatized group in Hungary, and decreased vote intentions for Hungary's overtly racist, far-right party by 10%. Our study offers a proof-of-concept for a general class of interventions that could be adapted to different settings and implemented at low costs.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 112 , Issue 1 , February 2018 , pp. 186 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2017 

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Footnotes

We thank Don Green, Sean Kates, Cyrus Samii, and Stephanie Zonszein for helpful advice; Kristóf Horváth, Anita Kaderják, Berci Papp, and Melinda Tír for excellent research assistance; and Gábor Kertesi and the TARKI Zrt. for their help with data collection. All data used in this article is available on Dataverse along with replication code (doi:10.7910/DVN/KBRXOR).

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